Vodacom Group has announced that they have reached an agreement to purchase a majority stake in South Africa’s internet of things specialist, IoT.nxt.

The financial details of the transaction remain undisclosed, and the deal is subject to approval by the Competition Commission. The acquisition of the company, however, could involve cash up to nine figures in South African Rands.

Vodacom is making this move because it deems the deal as a key that will unlock strategic growth. The latest acquisition will enable Vodacom to operate across the entire IoT value chain as well as develop best-in-class solutions for clients from a numerousness of verticals.

The firm also revealed in an earlier release that it is moving to acquire a 51 percent equity interest in IOT Holdings and IoT.nxt.

For example, this will allow us to better orchestrate the information obtained from sensors and edge devices as well as enable us to further scale our IoT business across multiple verticals as we move up the value chain.

Vodacom will continue to seek strategic acquisition opportunities to drive ongoing investment in the IoT sector and to become the digitalization partner of choice for enterprise clients and customers.”

IoT.nxt CEO Nico Steyn says: “This partnership is incredibly exciting for IoT.nxt. It allows us to combine the power of our technology and the considerable strength of Vodacom’s capabilities, footprint, and brand.

Vodacom has critically evaluated many platforms globally and has had operational success in projects with us, so this partnership resulted from these wins. IoT.nxt delivers significant technical differentiation and allows Vodacom to leverage the technology across all industries, allowing for both scalability and rapid time-to-market”.

According to the firm, the investment will provide it with the freedom to expand the business vision while building a class-leading product that will be sold globally, through multiple channels, including Vodacom’s competitors.

IoT.nxt was set up in the concluding phase of 2015 with help from funding provided by Talent10, an investment holding company, who later invested another R100 Mn (USD 7,032,650) for the establishment of the firm’s European base in The Hague.

The narrative from Talent10, who is a major shareholder in IoT.nxt, said that the Pretoria-based company has proved itself to be one of its most significant investments to date.

CEO Wayne Fitzjohn added that: “Co-founding IoT.nxt has proved to be one of our most significant decisions to date. It was clear within months that this IoT tech start-up had a world-leading solution.

We made a further investment of R100 million in 2017 to allow the company to expand internationally. This transaction with Vodacom confirms our belief in the unique solutions which IoT.nxt develops, and we are looking forward to an even more exciting journey ahead with the founders and our new partner, Vodacom.”